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Global Visual Processing and Self-Rated Autistic-like Traits

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Abstract

The current research investigated, firstly, whether individuals with high levels of mild autistic-like traits display a similar profile of embedded figures test (EFT) and global motion performance to that seen in autism. Secondly, whether differences in EFT performance are related to enhanced local processing or reduced global processing in the ventral visual stream was also examined. Results indicated that people who scored high on the Autism-spectrum Quotient (AQ) were faster to identify embedded figures, and had poorer global motion and global form thresholds than low AQ scorers. However, the two groups did not differ on a task assessing lower-level input to the ventral stream. Overall the results indicate that individuals with high levels of autistic-like traits have difficulties with global integration in the visual pathways, which may at least partly explain their superior EFT performance.

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Notes

  1. The koniocellular pathway is currently thought to be concerned primarily with blue-yellow color perception (Morand et al. 2000), and will not be considered further here.

  2. There were no significant differences in the performance of the participants who did not have English as a first language compared to the rest of the participants on any of the psychophysical tasks or the EFT [largest t (52) = 1.6, p = .12].

  3. It is not clear whether this individual did not perform the task correctly or if the high threshold is a reflection of poor form integration capabilities, but it must be noted that removing the outlier reduced the magnitude of the difference between the two groups.

  4. Recently, Pellicano et al. (2005) reported that higher GDM thresholds were associated with superior EFT performance in an ASD population. It is unclear whether the lack of relationship between these variables in the present study are due to the use of a different version of the EFT (we used the adult rather than the children’s EFT used by Pellicano et al.), or the fact that the high AQ group is less extreme in autistic-like traits than a clinical population.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by NH&MRC Project Grant 403942 to M. Maybery, D. R. Badcock, J. C. Badcock and E. Pellicano. We are grateful to Judith Cullity for her assistance in programming the computer protocols, and Nancy Minshew and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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  1. School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia

    Emma J. Grinter, Murray T. Maybery, Pia L. Van Beek, Elizabeth Pellicano & David R. Badcock

  2. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Elizabeth Pellicano

  3. Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry/Graylands Hospital, School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia

    Johanna C. Badcock

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  1. Emma J. Grinter
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Correspondence to Emma J. Grinter.

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Grinter, E.J., Maybery, M.T., Van Beek, P.L. et al. Global Visual Processing and Self-Rated Autistic-like Traits. J Autism Dev Disord 39, 1278–1290 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-009-0740-5

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